Opinion Blog

In Libya, it justified intervention. In Syria, not our problem?

From the first utterances, I’ve not thought U.S. military action in Libya, “kinetic” or otherwise, was a good idea. This ill-defined mission — “days, not weeks or months” — hasn’t improved under NATO supervision, possibly because, well, it’s NATO. Despite the president’s pronouncements, it’s not clear why U.S. forces became involved in what’s barely a civil war in a country in which we have no strategic interest.

So with that caveat, I ask: If we’re dropping bombs to prevent humanitarian disaster in Libya, why do we give protesters in Syria the back of our national hand?

I was struck over the weekend by video smuggled out of Syria showing government troops kicking and head-stomping handcuffed opponents. Estimates vary wildly — and deserve scrutiny — but if it’s anything close to more than 1,000 Syrian protesters killed, 10,000 imprisoned and 6,000 to 7,000 fleeing north to Turkey to escape the Bashar al-Assad regime, how is this so different from Libya?

Yes, I did bring this up this morning at our staff meeting. No, we’re not ready to take a position. Careful readers may deduce their own reasons.
One colleague, responding to my contention that President Barack Obama should be held accountable for his thousands and thousands of words on Libya and the Middle East, argued that precedent shouldn’t lock the U.S. into responding.

For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant — Muammar Qaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world — including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents.

Last month, Qaddafi’s grip of fear appeared to give way to the promise of freedom. In cities and towns across the country, Libyans took to the streets to claim their basic human rights. As one Libyan said, “For the first time we finally have hope that our nightmare of 40 years will soon be over.”

Faced with this opposition, Qaddafi began attacking his people.

Substitute “Syria” for “Libya” and “Assad” for “Qaddafi.”

In the face of the world’s condemnation, Qaddafi chose to escalate his attacks, launching a military campaign against the Libyan people. Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Journalists were arrested, sexually assaulted, and killed. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. Water for hundreds of thousands of people in Misurata was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble. Military jets and helicopter gunships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assaults from the air.

Confronted by this brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, I ordered warships into the Mediterranean.

Again, “Assad” for “Qaddafi.”

Ten days ago, having tried to end the violence without using force, the international community offered Qaddafi a final chance to stop his campaign of killing, or face the consequences. Rather than stand down, his forces continued their advance, bearing down on the city of Benghazi, home to nearly 700,000 men, women and children who sought their freedom from fear.

At this point, the United States and the world faced a choice. Qaddafi declared he would show “no mercy” to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we have seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day. Now we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we wanted — if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.

It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen.

It’s not America that put people into the streets of Tunis or Cairo — it was the people themselves who launched these movements, and it’s the people themselves that must ultimately determine their outcome.

Not every country will follow our particular form of representative democracy, and there will be times when our short-term interests don’t align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region. But we can, and we will, speak out for a set of core principles — principles that have guided our response to the events over the past six months:

The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region.

The United States supports a set of universal rights. And these rights include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders — whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran.

And this:

Our support for these principles is not a secondary interest. Today I want to make it clear that it is a top priority that must be translated into concrete actions, and supported by all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal.

Oh, and this:

While Libya has faced violence on the greatest scale, it’s not the only place where leaders have turned to repression to remain in power. Most recently, the Syrian regime has chosen the path of murder and the mass arrests of its citizens. The United States has condemned these actions, and working with the international community we have stepped up our sanctions on the Syrian regime — including sanctions announced yesterday on President Assad and those around him.

The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way. The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests. It must release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests. It must allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Dara’a; and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition. Otherwise, President Assad and his regime will continue to be challenged from within and will continue to be isolated abroad. [...]

So far, Syria has followed its Iranian ally, seeking assistance from Tehran in the tactics of suppression. And this speaks to the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime, which says it stand for the rights of protesters abroad, yet represses its own people at home. Let’s remember that the first peaceful protests in the region were in the streets of Tehran, where the government brutalized women and men, and threw innocent people into jail. We still hear the chants echo from the rooftops of Tehran. The image of a young woman dying in the streets is still seared in our memory. And we will continue to insist that the Iranian people deserve their universal rights, and a government that does not smother their aspirations.

Assad, it would appear, is far less concerned with what the president of the United States might think than, say, his allies in Tehran. Perhaps Assad also believes Obama “threaded the needle” very carefully to leave him plenty of room to torture his people, blow up their towns and shoot their ambulance drivers in the back.

Yes, but I’m just an Obama critic who fails to see the difference between violent repression here and violent repression there, between U.S. interests in Libya and U.S. interests in Syria. Let’s ask one of Obama’s fellow Democrats, Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia. Webb, to his credit, is asking some hard questions of his president about Libya and wants Congress to pass a joint resolution demanding some answers:

What was the standard in this case?

The initial justification was that a dictator might retaliate against people who rebelled against him. I do not make light of the potential tragedy involved in such a possibility, Mr. President, although it should be pointed out that there are a lot of dictators in the world, and very few democracies in this particular region, which gives this standard a pretty broad base if a President decides to use it again. Then, predictably, once military operations began in Libya, the stated goal became regime change, with combat now having dragged on for nearly three months.

So in a world filled with cruelty, the question becomes whether a President–any President–should be able to pick and choose when and where to use military force, using such a vague standard. Actually, that is the most important question, Mr. President: given our system of government, who should decide? And, even if a President should unilaterally decide on the basis of overwhelming, vital national interest that requires immediate action, how long should that decision be honored, and to what lengths should our military go, before the matter is able to come under the proper scrutiny – and the boundaries – of our Congress?

Let’s review the bidding, Mr. President. What did it look like when our President ordered our military into action in Libya, and what has happened since?

Was our country under attack, or under the threat of imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere, as we did in the 1986 raids in Libya, when I was in the Pentagon, after American soldiers had been killed in a disco in Berlin? Were we rescuing Americans in distress, as we did in Grenada in 1983?

No, we were not.

The President followed no clear historical standard when he unilaterally decided to use force in Libya. Once this action continued beyond his original definition of “days, not weeks” he did not seek the approval of Congress. And while he has discussed this matter with some members of Congress, this Administration has not formally conferred with the Legislative Branch.

Webb, it would seem, probably would oppose military action in Syria, too. At least he’s consistent on this point.

Top Picks

ArchivesAbout this blog

About this Blog

The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board was the first editorial board in the nation to use a blog to openly discuss hot topics and issues among its members and with readers. Our intent is to pull back the curtain on the daily process of producing the unsigned editorials that reflect the opinion of the newspaper, and to share analysis and opinion on issues of interest to board members and invited guest bloggers.